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Monday, October 3, 2011

The Shroud of Turin is deader than Jesus!

I was initially going to publish a post detailing all of the pro-shroud and anti-shroud arguments I have found on the web during my last week of research. However, I have recently found even more damning evidence that the Turin shroud cannot possibly be authentic anyways, due to this article. Long story short, the original 1988 Carbon dating test was accurate after all.

Of course, I was already pretty sure that the shroud was a fake. For one thing, the initial carbon dating test of 1988 dated the shroud to have been produced in between 1260-1390. This fit the medieval dating perfectly, as it coincides with the shrouds first appearance in history in 1353. Other evidence against it's authenticity included a report in 1390 from a bishop named Pierre d'Arcis who declared that it was a forgery, and that the artist confessed. Also, curiously enough, the good bishop claimed the author "cunningly painted" it, implying a complicated technique.

However, the shroud's proponents have used a variety of arguments to defend it. They would claim that the image on the shroud is anatomically perfect; They would claim that they found blood on it; They would claim that no skeptic has ever been able to perfectly replicate it; etc, etc, etc. However, the biggest argument they would use was that, in 2005, former Shroud skeptic Raymond Rogers published an article stating that the Carbon dating tests were inaccurate due to an invisible patch. He also composed his own test to date the Turin Shroud, which stated that the Shroud must be at least 1300-3000 years old. However, considering the article I found and aforementioned, I doubt that the Shroud will convince skeptics anytime soon.